Recipe & Tips

Text Box: The key is preparation. Mapping out your weekday dinner menus and shopping lists ahead of time is a great beginning. If time is more of an issue than money, buy fresh pre-cut fruits and vegetables whenever possible, or frozen when available. Purchase the best cooking tools you can afford that will help reduce preparation time. These include a slow cooker, mandolin, pressure cooker, wok, and a food processor or blender. Also, make sure you have two sets of measuring cups & spoons so you don’t have to worry about washing any during preparations. Read through your menus on Saturday and Sunday and decide what you can prepare ahead of time and freeze or refrigerate. Go for simple, basic foods with great flavors. You could stir-fry chicken, beef or pork every night of the week and create a different taste sensation every time by using different marinades and spices. And most stir-fry meals can be prepared, cooked and served in less than a 1/2 hour. You can also make double batches of things that freeze well, such as pasta sauces and soups. And meats can be marinated ahead of time and frozen. Just thaw, stir-fry, broil or grill, serve with rice and a salad and you’ve got a nutritious meal in 20 minutes. Set everything out you’ll need on the counter before you begin cooking, and put it away as you use it. This helps in two ways, less cleanup and if you get sidetracked by something (like a child’s blood curdling scream, you’re sure is life-threatening but turns out to be the dog has stolen her cookie), you’ll know exactly where you left off, since you very smartly put the garlic away, you won’t accidentally add double the recipe amount. Involve the kids in dinner planning and preparation. Try letting them plan one entire meal each week. This can open up discussions of what is healthy food, what is a balanced diet and how important it is. If they are invested in what’s prepared there are fewer complaints about what’s for dinner. Younger children can wash vegetables, use kitchen scissors and do some supervised mixing. Older kids can prepare an entire dish with parents’ help. Great conversations can take place while meal preparation goes on. If homework needs to be done while dinner is prepared, put a plate of raw vegetables and ranch dip on the kitchen table and encourage the kids to do homework there, where parents can answer questions and make not only eating dinner family time, but dinner preparation family time as well. Remember, cooking is not an exact science, with a few exceptions. Don’t be afraid to substitute, don’t stress over measurements and most importantly, have a little fun with it.

Text Box: The blog is live and you’ll find recipes there several times a week, instead of monthly. Lots more recipes along with some insightful commentary. Take a look: What’s 4 Dinner Solutions’ Blog

Marinade Tips

If a recipe has meats or poultry that are marinated, a great timesaver is to make the marinades when you purchase the meats. Mix meat & marinade together in a freezer bag and freeze them. All that’s left to do is thaw and cook.

Text Box: Veggie Appetizers Adding a plate of baby carrots, celery, sliced peppers, cherry tomatoes and other favorites to the table before you start prepping makes for great snacking while dinner is being prepared. Who knows it might even keep you from hearing, “when’s dinner?” every five minutes. Use fruit platter for dessert. Use apple, orange & pear slices, strawberries and grapes. Add dips, like caramel & chocolate for a quick, healthy dessert.

More Great Time Savers

Gather all your ingredients and utensils together before you begin cooking. Buy a jar of crushed garlic and refrigerate, it’s always fresh & ready, less mess than using cloves, fresher than powder. Frozen vegetables are a good quick substitute for fresh. Double recipes and use leftovers for weekday lunches.

Keep Handy In the Freezer

Cookie Dough - when you make a batch of cookie dough, store half in the freezer in an airtight container. Then you’re always ready to make cookies.

Tomato Paste - freeze unused tomato paste in ice cube trays, remove to plastic bag. Each cube is approximately 1 tbsp of paste. This works for lots of things, such as wine, juices, broths...just throw a cube in for each tbsp needed.

Text Box: Entertaining Tips For an easy and elegant centerpiece, use fresh fruits and candles, arrange them on a large platter or on a runner in the center of the table. For napkin rings, use cookie cutters guest can take home as party favors or tie velvet ribbon around napkins and add a sprig of rosemary at the bow.

Good Stuff to Have

Here are our favorite kitchen tools we think makes quick work of meal preparation: pressure cooker (can cut cooking time by 1/2 or more, and today’s pressure cookers are extremely safe); mandolin (a vegetable cutting tool); vegetable steamer (keeps more of the nutrients in your vegetables); meat thermometers are a must; plastic lettuce knife (makes quick work of a head of lettuce w/o making it “rusty”); small bread maker (these can make a loaf for dinner in 1 1/2 hours).

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